Violent Ends
by Ungraced
Summary: Some time after TTC, Thalia stumbles across Luke while on patrol. She takes him on alone. It's her chance to finally get closure - and it's not what she expected. Short one shot.


**(A/N: Set somewhere between the end of TTC and TBoL. I guess it's assumed that Thalia's on a mission with the hunters, patrolling alone when she finds Luke lurking and attempts to fend him off singlehandedly. I just didn't want to leave them as they were left - they needed a goodbye.)**

She kicked, she punched, he blocked. He feigned right and she leaned left. She feigned left and he sidestepped right. They were falling into some kind of rhythm; as familiar as it was deadly and doubly as painful in a thousand different ways, none of which she was allowing herself to think on for too long. The anger was what kept her going, kept her alive - always had been, right? This wasn't about a war any more, or at least not on a global scale. This was personal. This was Luke; how could it be anything but?

There was something Luke had taken, it seemed, that she was trying to pry from his body by force. Maybe, by some twisted, convoluted rule of logic, it would take beating the guy senseless for her to actually, finally separate herself from his memory. Her best friend was gone and this evil, ruthless killer had taken his body. But for that, she found she couldn't hate him because, had things turned out differently, had she followed the course of her life as was natural—a little less bark and a little more skin—maybe she'd have been on the opposite side of the line: by his side and just as doomed, but doomed together.

She tried with all she had to fill her expression with hatred, her gaze boring into his own unfathomable stare as a deeper part of her body reacted to sensed movements, long before her brain could have thought up a response to them. The more she drove him back, the less she wanted to fight. He was losing will, she could feel it like she felt her heart melting away with every blow. She was losing herself.

Then she aimed an admittedly lazy kick at his abdomen and in one calculated yet breathless movement, he caught her foot easily with his iron-firm but somehow gentle grasp.

"Thalia, stop," he said, his voice something close to heartbreak, bitterness and desperation. So she did stop, and a moment stretched out into several where all she could do was look at him, blank-faced and catching her breath when he finally released her foot. She was losing it. Her composure, her everything. He had her unsure of herself, he had her losing face and she was sure that the animal he had become would take advantage of that. Still, she could not summon the will to throw the next blow. Thalia sighed and shook her head infinitesimally, running an absent hand through her unruly onyx hair.

"Come back," she pleaded, her voice so much smaller than anyone would have thought possible of Thalia Grace.

Luke dropped his gaze immediately and, after a few moments, murmured, "I... I can't."

Of course not.

She nodded and immediately turned to leave, the fight forgotten, everything forgotten because she was about to cry and she'd be damned if she let him see that. However, he caught her wrist with the same lithe grasp as before. His grasp that had frozen her last time, now pulled her back to the moment, unfreezing her in an instant as she snapped back with a ferocity that rivalled one of Zeus' storms. "What, Luke?" She almost spat. He was just looking at her though, his expression a mixture of emotions she didn't want to deal with, but probably a mirror of her own. She was so sick of feeling like this. He was a 'what if' she could never allow herself to have, but couldn't walk away from. How many times did the Fates have to tear them apart before she realised they could never be happy? "What?" she asked again, in a whisper this time, her anger drained and her body falling to pieces. The maiden huntress didn't pull away when he cupped her face in his hands. He was barely touching her but she felt it like static in every cell of her body. Still, she said nothing when he leaned closer. She even stayed still when he stopped for a second, mouth hovering over hers, hesitant, inquiring, waiting for her to protest. And when their lips finally met, it took everything she had not to move, because she would have pulled him closer, not pushed him away. It was a brief, ghost of a kiss and when their lips parted he pursed his for a second, then turned and left. It was goodbye, she supposed. And it was the last time they met.

**(A/N: Any kind of feedback would be lovely. If you enjoyed this, I really want to know about it and if anything didn't work, I'm also interested. I know everyone says this but if you've got a spare minute, please review. :) )**


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